Italian Delegates hosted by the DCE

A delegation from planning departments of different Italian cities – Turin, Rome, Florence, Bologna and Palermo - took part in a 3-day NL visit in October.

On the first day, Wout Ritzema from ProRail presented the important elements to consider when building bicycle parking next to stations. The delegation was also interested in understanding how responsibilities and funding were divided between the different companies and authorities. Following the presentation, the delegation was given a guided tour of 3 bicycle parking around Utrecht central station by Ramon Egberts, also from ProRail. The last visited parking is the largest bicycle parking in the world. Ramon highlighted that ProRail is not used to build and manage bicycle parking of such a size and therefore pushes them to study its usage in practice to make further adjustments and inform the design of future construction of ‘super’ bicycle parking.

The second day started off with a welcoming presentation by Michiel Hustinx from the Municipality of Nijmegen, European Green Capital of 2018. The group then moved (of course by bicycle) to the Dutch Bicycle Center where they enjoyed a presentation by Ruben Loendersloot of the Loendersloot Groep. His presentation was followed by a demonstration from Bas van Dijk from Lumiguide, a company specialized in bicycle detection and guidance systems. Folkersma Routing & Sign followed with a presentation of their activities concerning routing of recreational cycling in the Netherlands. The group then got on their bicycles to be shown around Nijmegen by expert Sjors van Duren to experience the innovations in cycling infrastructure in this area, including car-visiting streets where cyclists have preference.

The last day started with a presentation of Danny van Beusekom from Goudappel Coffeng about the role of the bike in urban planning. Danny showed the trends of car and bike use in Amsterdam in the past and nowadays. The delegation was also interested in new traffic circulation which prevent car use in the city centre as well as in Sustainable Safety Policy. After the presentation the delegation took part in a bicycle tour of the city under the guidance of Danny. The group made several stops to get more information about some of the cycling infrastructure e.g. residential streets, bikestreets or shared space that were presented in the morning session.